It turns out you can’t keep a good Multiple Man down. Marvel Comics will launch a new Multiple Man miniseries starring Jamie Madrox this July from writer Matthew Rosenberg (New Mutants: Dead Souls, Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey) and artist Andy MacDonald (Justice League of America), featuring covers by Marcos Martin.
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This announcement may come as a bit of a surprise to fans since Madrox died at the beginning of the Death of X event in 2016.
“Yeah, Jamie is very dead,” Rosenberg tells ComicBook.com “He was killed by the Terrigen Mists and all of his dupes died with him. But our book starts off with someone finding Jamie very not dead. But he is not long for this world. So the mystery of why he isn’t dead and how to save himself is a big driving force of the story.
“If I were smarter I’d probably say some nonsense about how this was all about the duality of man and the Jungian archetypes that exist within us, how they are often oppositional, and how the ideas of who we are existed before us and continue beyond us. Maybe the book is about what we leave behind in the world for the people who love us and the people who don’t, and how that story is never a complete picture. But, honestly, I just like Jamie Madrox a lot and I raised my hand in a meeting at the Marvel office and said, ‘What if he wasn’t dead?’ and then they asked me to make up how that would work. And so… here we are. Dude’s not dead.”
When asked about the kinds of threats Madrox would be facing in the new series, Rosenberg pointed towards the unfortunate end Madrox has seemingly escaped.
“Death,” Rosenberg says. “Death is one of the big threats for sure. But also there is a mysterious new team you meet in issue #1 who are coming for him. They are willing to go toe to toe with the X-Men to get to him, so you know they’re pretty serious. Who they are and why they exist is pretty crazy, but it is all part of a bigger plan for global domination. While Jamie is mostly concerned with not dying at first, he gets caught up in all this stuff and, ya know, has to try and fix it. Or not. It’s complicated.”
Luckily for Jamie, he has some old friends he can rely on.
“As for Layla [Miller, Madrox’s wife], she isn’t in this one,” Rosenberg says. “We’re focussing on Jamie for now and getting him back on the board before we can get them back together… If we get them back together. But some other X-Factor folks are definitely going to pop up. I’m using a bunch of them in my New Mutants series already (shameless plug) so I didn’t have to ask for a lot of permission to bring them over. And that’s really what it’s all about. Not asking for permission.”
Madrox is a character who has gotten to play in different genres throughout his history, be it noir, comedy, or something between. Rosenberg plans to keep that tradition alive.
“What I love about him is that, as a character, he lends himself to a lot of different stuff,” Rosenberg explains. “Peter David’s X-Factor was a big influence for me because it shifts so well from comedy to detective story to body horror to superhero and back again. That’s something we’re all trying to accomplish here, those shifts that keep you guessing. There are a lot of comedy elements. This is definitely the most absurd thing I’ve ever written. But the book is also about people who dedicate their whole lives to fighting evil, people confronting the darkness within themselves, the troubles with time travel, the morality of clones, the end of the world, and how cool Hulks are.”
Multiple Man #1, the first of five issues, goes on sale in July.
